


find me in the shallows

by redkeep



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dismemberment, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, M/M, Prostitution, Underage Prostitution, a general disregard for the law
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7965670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redkeep/pseuds/redkeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theon's on his knees in backrooms, falling in love through the years in every way he knows how. Kind-faced boys on sunlit beachfronts, dark-haired boys in dimly lit clubs, and blood-stained boys holding knives in the dead of night. This is a reclamation, and it may be imperfect but that doesn't make it any less true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dry your smoke-stung eyes

**Author's Note:**

> the au that wouldn't leave me alone. yes, this is it. the hooker au. sure, maybe part of me should be ashamed, but i say let us do this thing and let us do it with aplomb. i don't really know any other way to do things, honestly. i do want to give a reminder to heed the warnings, as everything there is an important part of the story, and i would rather you skip this one over than be hurt or upset by the content.
> 
> and one last thing! i'd be remiss to neglect mentioning the song that really set the stage for this one: [♪](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGnAsQobwrw) shallows by daughter will be giving us the fic title as well as the chapter titles.
> 
> now onto what you came here for.

Sick twisted cherry-red lights line the walls of this club, casting ethereal shadows as Theon snakes his way through the moving masses of people.

He ends up near the bathrooms and makes eyes across the room, scanning for loners, people so out of place they ooze with awkwardness. He’s good at this. Young guys, new guys, they try to slide shy smiles at people who are similarly attractive and comfortable in places like these. It’s not even so much naïveté as it is hope because, well, obviously you want to suck the dick of a guy whose dick actually interests you. Naturally.

Theon’s lucky because he’s not exactly picky. The guy who ends up stumbling over to him is balding and bug-eyed, kinda sorta creepy, looks like he might have been a high school science teacher in a previous life, or maybe a mad scientist in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Yeah, well. Theon pulls him into the bathroom, pretty thing on his knees and says that’ll be fifty dollars. The guy looks hurt but not surprised and, anyway, he fumbles for his wallet in the end and Theon gets him off with his eyes closed and his throat open. He hasn’t had a gag reflex since he was sixteen.

Money in the back of his pocket, Theon wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and heads back out into the club, walking over to the bar when he spots ridiculous black, curly hair.

“Hey,” he says, yells, bouncing a little, nervous. Always nervous when it comes to which side will face up when this coin is flipped.

“Yeah? Oh.” And when Jon looks at him it’s with faraway eyes, cosmic like. A whole other universe in there. Theon breathes easily at that. Last time they saw each other Jon was clean and Theon still has the bruises to prove it. This way, talking like this—he can handle this. It is, in fact, the only way he can handle Jon anymore.

“Are you going to the party?” Theon asks, swiping closer, his hand on Jon’s elbow, fingers instinctively covering the track marks there. Force of habit, the need to protect him.

“Party? Oh the—yeah. Probably. Why do you wanna, like. Go together?”

Theon pretends to think about it, leans back against the bar and licks at his lips. They’re dry, chapped. He’s too tired to care, but he needs this money. And he hates going to these things alone.

“Yeah, I mean. If that’s cool.”

Jon nods, because he hates going alone too.

They walk most of the way. dodging cars and slipping on the rain slicked sidewalks. Theon chatters in a way that he knows is annoying, because he just can’t stop himself. His mouth is always running away from him, pockets full of words he never really meant to say out loud, “You can come back to my place after” and “I haven’t slept for days” and “That color looks good on you.”

“Black?” Jon says, lifting an arm like he’s forgotten about the shirt he’s wearing.

“Yeah, sure.” Theon stops Jon in front of the building they’re eventually going to go in, the party they’ve got to make at least a thousand bucks at, each, if they don’t want to lose a body part. Theon’s already missing two. He brushes the remaining fingers of his left hand through Jon’s hair, separating obvious tangles and then turning his cheek to the side, eyeing the yellowing bruise under his eye. He couldn’t see it in the club light and can only just see it now, outside, streetlights above them.

He doesn’t ask, just lets his hand fall away from Jon’s face.

With these types of things, asking is rarely worth it.

“C’mon,” he says, streetwise but never smart enough to stay away from the things that leave him bruised. It’s part of the reason he and Jon wound up on the same stretch of concrete again after all this time. Their shared propensity to let themselves be torn down by other people.

 

* * *

 

A hundred thousand miles up in the air, and Theon is just high enough to believe he’ll never have to come down.

He’s on the beach with folded money in his pocket, laid out on the sand, watching the sun rise. He knows, distantly, that he’s had better ideas than spending his early morning hours strung out in public, but he’s also had worse ideas so it all kinda evens out in the end.

Too tired to drag himself down to the waves but, man, he misses the open water. He knows the ocean is right here, not moving for anyone. That’s always been one of his favorite things about the beach, the immovable nature of its existence. But he doesn’t do outside crowds these days, doesn’t do midday light, either.

Five in the morning, sunrise halfway done, beach empty except for the markings left over from yesterday, though. That he can do.

He’s trying to remember the last thing he said to Jon, when they were counting bills in the apartment building lobby, sweat drenched bodies and t-shirts not pulled down all the way. Something about how it was a good night, real good night, while Jon nodded and said I think I’m just gonna go home, I think I gotta sleep it all off.

He’s trying to remember the exact way Jon said that, the way his eyes looked, when he’s hit full force by someone yelling and the pounce of something fluffy and made of boundless energy on his side.

It’s a dog, big and slobbery, the kind Theon has never liked. Covered in grey fur and with a lolling tongue that it uses to lick a stripe up Theon’s cheek, tail wagging high in the air.

“Shit—fuck—Grey! I’m so sorry, he’s a good dog, I swear!”

Theon’s rolling on his side, dazed and shaken, ready to be biting, nasty mean, when he looks up and it all dissipates.

Dark, dark red hair, big brown eyes, smooth skin and a genuinely worried look on his face. Theon suddenly remembers why leaving home was worth it. He did it for boys like these and the sounds they make when he’s got them pinned up against a wall, _fuck_. Theon breathes in, deep and sharp, as the boy pulls his dog away.

“I really am so sorry,” the boy says, starting to sound frantic, like he’s scared Theon’s gonna stand up and punch him, push him down in the sand and break some bones. And Theon might have if this boy was someone else, but, well.

He gets on his knees, brushing his shirt off. The sky looks exceptionally beautiful this morning, purple like the bruises under his eyes. And he remembers what courage used to feel like for a moment, can’t believe he was ever able to forget.

“It’s no problem,” he says, “as long as you take me on a date.”

 

* * *

 

Robb—his name is Robb, like he’s a prince or a knight, like a character in a fairy tale—thinks Theon is hilarious.

He ties Grey Wind (Theon guesses weird names run in the family) to a bike rack outside of a diner on the pier that’s just opening up. The two of them are the only ones inside aside from an exhausted but pleasant waitress and the kitchen staff.

Robb orders without looking at the menu and Theon picks the biggest breakfast plate they offer because he hasn’t eaten a full meal since he doesn’t know when, and he’s never mastered the art of modesty, of saying _oh no I really shouldn’t_.

He grins at Robb when the waitress walks away and Robb flushes, cherry frosting for his red velvet cake-colored hair.

“You come here a lot?” Theon asks, picking at the sugar packs at their table, flinging a few across the way.

Robb grins like he likes that. “Sure, yeah, mostly during the summer but sometimes in the morning before school, too.”

Theon hums. In the morning before school. A college kid would say class, he figures, probably. He doesn’t hang out with many college kids, but still. He’s thinking, looking across the way as Robb starts stacking sugar packets in a miniature Tower of Piza type situation, this boy is not legal. This boy is no good for you, or, more like, you’re no good for this boy.

“What about you?” Robb asks. “You went to Mason? Or are you not from around here.”

“Dropped out,” Theon says, vaguely. It’s not a lie, even though there’s no way the high school he went to is the same one Robb is talking about. “Left home.”

“Really? Wow.” Robb has the tone of voice of someone who’s never done what they’re not supposed to. In awe of rash actions borne out of a mix of necessity and stupidity. Like he’s imagining Theon leaving home to do great things, to become some great person.

Theon shifts in the booth and feels the money in his pocket shift with him. It’s a ridiculous amount of money to be carrying around. He’s still going to make sure Robb pays for his food.

The waitress brings over their food, french toast with syrup and sausage for Robb and scrambled eggs, hash browns, toast, and sausage for Theon. It smells so good Theon could almost cry. He consists mostly on a diet of frozen food and things he can scrounge off of other people. He tends to spend his money on speed before fruits and vegetables.

He gets a cup of soda at his own request, Robb watching him as he sucks half the thing down in what must be record time.

“Thirsty?” he asks.

“You bet,” Theon replies, already through a mouthful of hash browns that he drenched in ketchup. He remembers his older brothers telling him how nasty that was, how gross. He still loves the taste. “Anyway—you wanna go see a movie or something?”

“Wuh—um. That’s kinda, I don’t know…sudden?” Robb is watching him with wide eyes, pushing half of his french toast around his plate.

“Yeah, I don’t really do plans. Now or never.” Theon grins, crunching into his last piece of toast. He’s cleared his entire plate already, down to the bare bones. Kinda regrets it, though, would have liked to have gotten one of those white styrofoam take-home things. This is breakfast, but what about lunch and dinner?

Whatever, he doesn’t have time to think about it. Never really does. Three meals a day is too much for someone like him, anyhow.

Robb pays the bill comfortably, tucking a five dollar bill under the napkin dispenser for a tip. Theon gets the feeling this boy isn’t rich, but well off with respectable parents. The type of family who taught him to be kind to other people, but also the type who wouldn’t take well to their son spending his time with a whore.

He follows Robb out to the sidewalk, where Grey Wind is sitting obediently, soaking in the sun with his tongue half out of his mouth.

“What movies are out right now?” Robb asks as he squats down to untie Grey’s leash.

“Um, probably something about superheroes, I dunno.” It’s been honest to God years since Theon went to the movies on purpose, sober and actually watching what was on the screen. “I’ll see anything.”

 _With you, with you, with you_ , he wants to say to this boy he just met. He knows that’s dangerous, bad and stupid A special kind of stupid because what’s he really gonna do with this high school boy in board shorts and a place on the, what’s it called, honor roll?

But Robb just stands up, leash in hand and says, “Well, I like superheroes.”

And Theon, he just grins.

 

* * *

 

 

Jon’s sitting on the front steps of his place.

Just barely noon and Theon’s got sweat stains on his shirt and his hair’s a mess. He’s gotta change, his first real date in ever with the prettiest boy he’s ever seen.

But Jon’s sitting there, eyes red rimmed and whole body shaking, so Theon pulls him inside because despite what everyone says he’s not a monster, he’s not heartless.

He doesn’t ask what’s wrong. Instead he puts a hand to Jon’s forehead and feels the heat there. Thousand degrees, hundred thousand, doesn’t matter. Jon is burning up, but keeps saying he’s freezing. It’s the only thing he’s saying as Theon leads him to his bedroom and puts him on the mattress on the floor.

“Shh, babe, shh,” Theon says, before leaving him there to get some water. He’s done this too many times before and he hates himself for being worried that this is going to fuck up his plans.

But it should be okay, shouldn’t be that bad. Jon’s prone to summer sickness, bad at coming down from his highs and they’ve done this before.

Theon wants to say _what is it this time_ but doesn’t, just ends up sitting on the edge of the mattress and helping Jon drink from the glass he filled to the brim.

Probably it was the coke on top of the smack. Theon saw Jon snorting lines at the party before being passed around between the impossibly ugly men there, all of them with black credit cards and red faces. Theon’s always telling Jon not to partake when he doesn’t know where something came from—that coke coulda easily been cut with bath salts for all they know, something nuts like that—but Jon doesn’t listen, never listens. Stubborn until the end, at least where Theon’s concerned.

“Hey,” Jon’s saying, a hand on Theon’s wrist, fingers freezing now even though he’s wrapped up in a blanket. “Hey, man. You’ll stay with me, yeah, please? Yeah?”

Theon pushes the hair on Jon’s forehead back and presses his palm against the skin there. Warm, but not worryingly so now that he’s inside and out of the sun.

“Yeah,” he says, easily, naturally. A kiss pressed to Jon’s too prominent cheekbone. “Of course.”

Jon falls into fitful sleep and Theon knows it’ll last all day, probably over twelve hours. He knows he should stay, keeping pillows at Jon’s back and checking his temperature with the back of his hand. He knows he should.

He locks the door behind him when he leaves.

 

* * *

 

He meets Robb at the Main Art Theatre, the dingiest, oldest cool kid spot in the city, the only place anywhere nearby that has a ticket booth outside the building, the front window cluttered with ads for missing pets and little league sign ups that ended months ago.

Robb pays without being asked and Theon was right, _Batman v Superman_ is playing in spectacular fashion, the next showing in only five minutes. Theon still manages to strong arm Robb into hitting up the concession stand and they have to run to theater number seven, all the way in the back, a trail of popcorn in their wake.

The theater itself is almost empty, a mid-afternoon showing of a movie that’s been out for almost a month. Theon couldn’t care less. They catch the tail end of previews for movies coming out in fall, enough for them to agree some action thing with explosions looks like shit.

To Theon’s amazement he actually has fun without climbing bodily on top of Robb and pressing his lips to the boy’s throat.

Instead they jostle for control of the bucket of popcorn and grin at each other in the darkness. It’s like they’ve been friends for years and part of Theon aches for that. He can imagine it easily. He always wanted a best friend, all he has to do is slot Robb into his dreams of a nameless, faceless boy who he’d spend all his time with. It would’ve been easier, he thinks, to put up with everything else if there was a wickedly kind boy at his elbow, keeping him in line with a smile.

Theon keeps their shoulders pressed together as much as they can, reveling in the feel of it like seeing a storm off in the distance. Summer evenings with grey skies, lightning on the other side of town. Theon would sit and watch, waiting for the rain to come to him, anticipation in the pit of his stomach. He feels that now, Robb slumping against him, laughing at nothing in particular, face lit up by the screen in front of them.

All Theon can think is why didn’t he meet this boy sooner, where has he been all his life.

The credits roll and the two of them stay in the theater after everyone has left, watching the names go past, talking about nothing and Theon ends up saying, desperate for this to never end, “We have to do this again, right?”

“Of course, dude, yeah!” Robb says and Theon’s heart soars at the excitement in his voice. He sounds like he means it, like Theon is a person he wants to spend more than a day with. “Lemme give you my number.”

He ends up writing it on the back of Theon’s hand like a teenage girl might, using a pen they borrow from an employee back in the theater lobby.

It takes everything in Theon not to kiss Robb right there, not to push him against a wall when they get outside. He knows where that kinda thing will lead, the two paths they could end up going down, and he doesn’t have the time or ability to handle either right now.

“Don’t leave me hanging, man,” Robb says to him and Theon smiles as he backs away, waves, turns and disappears around the side of a building.

Theon cradles his hand to his chest and thinks, God, he’d sooner die.

 

* * *

 

Jon is still out cold when he stops back at his apartment to grab the money he stashed in the freezer. He finds Jon’s still in the pocket of his jeans and takes the cut he owes from it. Jon might be angry when he wakes up, but he’ll thank Theon in the end. He always does.

Before he leaves, Theon carefully copies Robb’s number down on the inside flap of a Chinese place’s menu, to the side of the list of family meals. He puts a star next to it and tucks the menu back into the drawer it came from, equal parts excited and sick to his stomach about the secret he’s now keeping.

He changes for the second time that day, putting on a tank top and splashing water on his face in the bathroom and leaves Jon without saying goodbye.

It’s a long walk to the club, but Theon isn’t about to start taking cabs now. He has a certain addiction to the dread that soaks into him with every step he takes on nights like these. Chancing runs through green lights, he doesn’t wait for anybody. It’s not so much recklessness as it is a complete lack of care. Sprawled out on concrete, bleeding from his head, a lot of things would be easier if he were gone.

But, as usual, no one hits him to the ground. He makes it just fine, bouncing in through the side door of the club and heading up the stairs once inside.

Ramsay’s sitting by himself and when he smiles at Theon, Theon feels ghosting pains in his left hand, causing him to curl the fingers left there inwards.

He falls into the seat next to Ramsay, leans back and lifts himself off the chair, pulling both his and Jon’s earnings out of his back pocket. He counts out two thousand dollars and passes it across the table. Ramsay accepts the bills with a nod.

“Where is he?”

“Home. Unconscious. He got pretty fucked up at the party last night.”

“So he’s not working tonight?” Ramsay looks like coiled, ready-to-strike murder in the low lighting as he tucks Theon’s money into the pocket of his suit jacket. He’s always too well dressed for places like these, can’t stop from showing off all the things he’s earned, no matter what the means.

“Well, no. Even if he wasn’t dead to the world I don’t think—I don’t think he’d exactly be…that appealing, right now.”

“I don’t know, there are a lot of people who like their boys strung out.”

 _Yeah_ , Theon wants to say, _I know how you like them_. But he bites his tongue, looks around.

“Not much of a crowd tonight, anyways, huh?”

“No,” Ramsay replies and he’s got that look in his eyes. “I’m thinking this will be a night just for you and me.”

Theon licks his lips, nods, pushes his shaking hands under his thighs and smiles. Nights like these are why he stopped hoping for pretty boys and movie theater dates, why he stopped looking both ways before he crossed the street, why the sudden flash of light off the steel of a knife can make his throat close up.

Nights like these are the reason he doesn’t sleep.

 

* * *

 

He gets home at something like daybreak, stumbling into his apartment, scarred and bruised and fucked, crashing down low.

He’s surprised to find someone in his bed, Jon half awake and now it’s his turn to care for Theon.

“Shh,” he says. “Shhhh.”

Always trying to keep the other one quiet, mending scars, Jon holds Theon down to keep him from lashing out and Theon thinks, distantly, thank God I found you a second time.

He doesn’t know Jon’s whole story, only knows the basics, that he was a foster home kid with marks on his arms and anger in his eyes. That second time, he found him in the park after leaving a hotel. He’d seemed dead at first,, but Theon was never one to give up on the still and cold.

Death was one of those things he’d stopped believing in by that point.

And when Jon had proved him right, turned out not to be dearly departed after all, Theon had felt relief and shock all at once, seeing his face, this ghost from his past come back to haunt him.

But Jon was a natural, with pretty hair and a young face and, sure, sometimes Theon felt bad for dragging him down into this shit. Sure, sometimes he apologized when Jon was too gone to hear him, faraway in the way only being strung out could make him. Sure.

But, mostly he’s just glad there was someone to care for him, someone for him to care for.

The amount of times he’s tucked Jon’s hair behind his ears and told him it’ll be okay—the amount of times Jon’s set his broken bones.

It was Jon who opened the door for him when he was a bleeding mess, sobbing and desperate, clutching onto air, the place where his fingers should have been.

“What happened? What happened?” Jon kept shouting, even as he grabbed everything he could, a sheet to rip into strips of cloth and a nearly empty container of rubbing alcohol.

“I asked him to do it,” Theon had sobbed out, because he had and it had been his fault for giving permission. His fingers on ice somewhere, still living things. “I asked him!”

There had been so much blood and Jon had said later that he was sure Theon was going to die. He’d stayed up feverishly for days, changing the dressings on the wound obsessively, scared of something going wrong. He’d had a friend of his, one of the few non-judgemental ones, come over and stitch up the wound when he’d gotten desperate.

Theon remembers, deliriously, hearing a girl ask what the fuck had happened, remembers Jon refusing to answer just please, Ygritte, I don’t know what to do.

These are the important things, the secrets people keep for him. He and Jon are like crushed glass, ground under someone’s heel. Used to be part of something bigger once, both of them, but now they’re both on the ground. Doesn’t matter how much Theon wants to punch that pretty face sometimes, doesn’t matter how Jon rolls his eyes and avoids him when he’s sober.

When they’re down, they go to each other and even if that’s just because there’s no one else, well. That’s still something.

 

* * *

 

It’s two days later and Theon’s got circles under his eyes like bruises. He takes the Chinese menu with him to a payphone and calls Robb, _hey remember me_ , standing there in evening light like a halo with flies buzzing around his head.

The amazing thing is that Robb does remember him and he rattles off an address, the type of person who’s never had to worry someone’s going to steal everything he owns, probably on account of insurance policies and just generally owning more stuff than one person can carry.

Theon pretends he’s writing it down _uh huh_ and _got it_. Really he just memorizes the number and street name, the basic direction, and makes it there a few minutes before nine. He was right about Robb’s family, he can tell from the front of the house. It’s a new build colonial with windows all lit up, two cars in the driveway and a bike laying on the grass in a way that says this is a good neighborhood.

Robb said to come around the back and so Theon does, finding himself in a sloping backyard, knocking on the sliding glass door of a walk-out basement that Robb unlocks in a move that’s either fearless or stupid because he doesn’t know Theon at all.

“Dude, are you alright?” Robb asks, head tilted to the side, all genuine.

“Yeah, just uh—pulled an all-nighter last night.” Theon grins.

“Oh…cool!” Robb gestures for him to come inside and Theon can’t help but glance around. Finished basement, drywall and everything, filled with exercise equipment and filing cabinets, pictures on the wall that Theon doesn’t want to look at because that type of stuff will only make his heart ache.

Robb leads him to a room that’s tucked in a corner and that’s a novel idea, a room in a basement that isn’t for laundry. It’s something like a den, with a big television and video games, a comfortable couch and a mini fridge. Jesus, Theon thinks, this is normal to some people.

He turns around and it’s three hours later, him and Robb candy-sweet on Fruit Roll Ups and popcorn, Robb trying to explain the plot of Legend of Zelda to Theon, who was more of a Playstation kid, growing up. He likes the story though, at least when he’s hearing it from Robb’s cherry stained mouth, rambling on with _and and and oh yeah_.

They’ve been keeping reasonably quiet, Robb explaining that he has four younger siblings, all of them upstairs except for one of the girls who’s at a sleepover, birthday party kinda thing. It’s not that his parents really care he has a friend over—he swears he told them, though Theon gets the feeling that’s part way a lie, that they think one of Robb’s usual regular type friends is over, all football good looks—it’s that if his little brothers know he does then they’ll be down here, too, asking a million questions and getting their sticky little kid hands all over everything.

Robb says this like it’s the worst thing he can imagine, a family interested in what he’s doing, their hands on his things. Theon has a hard time understanding, because his anger (which is a real, solidified thing) has always been borne out of the disinterest of others, the fact that he’s been left alone since he can remember.

But he’s too sugar high to really care right now, smiley and sprawled out on the couch, taking up the whole thing while Robb sits on the floor in front of it, saying, “So, I gotta save the princess.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Theon throws an arm over his eyes and giggles helplessly. “You?”

“What! I’m capable.” Theon moves his arm, peeks at Robb who’s practically pouting. It just makes Theon laugh harder. “Whatever. Shut up. In this game she’s cool, though. She’s, like, a pirate.”

Theon, between lingering, hiccuping laughs, rolls over onto his side. “Well, alright. I like pirates.”

Robb turns to look at him, face confused, like Theon’s the weirdest person he ever met, but he’s okay with it and he’s not sure why. Theon’s breath catches in his throat at that look on the face of this boy he’s known for less than a week and he’s hopeless to resist.

It’s awkward, a sideways kinda kiss, Theon coming in from the wrong angle, missing Robb’s mouth halfway. All he knows is he wants to taste him on his tongue, doesn’t want to leave this tiny, tucked away basement room where it’s only the two of them.

“Ah, Theon, I, I—“ Robb is frozen in place when he pulls away, hands still on the gamepad.

“It’s fine, sorry. I didn’t mean—“

“That was like. It was like. Spiderman.”

“Spiderman?” Theon’s mouth curls into a smile. Jesus. Spiderman. Alright, he can work with this. “C’mere, I’ll show you, I’ll show you.”

“Yeah? I—yeah?” Robb sounds unsure, but he’s still turning around, getting on his knees, eyes on Theon’s mouth like this is a whole different beast. Never seen anything like this before.

Theon leans forward, hand on the nape of Robb’s neck and then sliding up into his hair. “C’mere,” he says again, and then  Robb’s mouth is on his, Robb’s lips fitting against his in the most achingly perfect way. Robb’s got one hand on Theon’s chest and as Theon licks against his lips it turns into a fist, clutching the fabric of Theon’s shirt.

Kissing Robb feels like all the things Theon was promised when he was a kid, all the stories about what this was supposed to be like. Bubbling joy in his chest, every good thing that’s ever happened at the back of his mind and none of it compares to Robb grinning against his lips.

He pulls away and is floored by the normalcy of it all. A boy who he likes, a boy who likes him, the two of them fooling around in the boy’s basement, and Theon thinks _this is what I’ve been missing all along_.

He pulls Robb in again and, this time, doesn’t let him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> most of this fic is finished, but with my fall semester of my senior year impending (as in, my class/internship gets into the full swing in the next few days) expect updates on this to be somewhat sporadic, but always on the way. there should be five chapters overall, for anyone who's interested in concrete numbers.
> 
> this fic is roughly balanced between three central relationships in theon's life and i hope you'll bear with me as that plays out here over the course of the story. as always, i love to hear what you guys think, so comments are appreciated (or messages on tumblr @ mismania), and i'll see you next time.


	2. to the sea, my love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fuzzy gray lines that appear as you rewind a worn VHS tape, unable to stop rewatching a scene that leaves you speechless.

For a few months, Theon sleeps fitfully on subway station benches, tucked under the arms of his own jacket and shivering.

There’s this message playing on repeat in his mind, a repeating track of _I know what you are_ and _Not in my house_ , and he’s constantly jumping at the sound of doors slamming. He spends his days in innocuous places. The beach, the library, the arcade where he can fish unused quarters out of machines in the glow of flashing lights. He sneaks into community centers to take showers, quick and cold, sometimes still half-dressed.

But nights, nights belong to plastic seats and empty underground stations that feel like sitting in a bunker must, just waiting for explosions to go off.

It’s only a matter of time, the inevitable, but it comes at him from an angle he didn’t expect. He wakes up to the echoes of whimpering pleas from the bathroom near the vending machines, words he can’t quite make out. The smart thing would be to grab his shit and go, but he’s been itching for confrontation since he left home.

The banality of homelessness, the undercurrent of violence everywhere he goes just isn’t enough. He makes it to the bathroom quietly, using the electric hum of the vending machines’ dim lights as cover.

“Please,” someone is saying, “p-please I’ll give you—I’ll give you all of it, I just need time.”

“I don’t think I believe you,” someone else replies and from Theon’s vantage point he thinks that’s the person who’s holding the knife to the other one’s throat.

His body moves without his permission, jerking away, elbows hitting the Coke vending machine he’s next to and then there’s silence for a sharp, cutting moment and then Theon runs.

He runs like someone’s chasing him because he’s pretty sure someone is, but he doesn’t even think of yelling for help. He’s operating on the bare minimum, right up until he makes the stupid choice to hesitate and consider grabbing his stuff from where he was sleeping.

Stupid, stupid, because of course the guy behind him has no reason to stop for even a second and of course that’s when he grabs Theon from behind and presses the blade of his knife to Theon’s neck. And Theon is paralyzed, petrified, exhausted already because he barely eats anymore, barely sleeps.

“Well,” Theon hears him say, his arm around Theon’s waist like a predatory, useless promise, “what do we have here?”

 

* * *

 

The guy with the knife is named Ramsay and Theon ends up sleeping at his apartment for the next month.

Ramsay leaves at odd hours to do things Theon doesn’t ask him about. He thinks it has to do with drugs, something like that, something he can’t imagine the heights of. Theon spent sophomore year dealing pot to seniors, sometimes in exchange for quickie hand jobs in locker rooms, but he has a feeling whatever Ramsay’s involved in is a little more complex than that.

When Ramsay’s gone, Theon roams the apartment, drinks one-day expired orange juice out of the carton and flips through television channels on stolen cable. He spends one afternoon trying to find something, anything, that tells him who Ramsay is—a yearbook, a library card, a piece of junk mail—and finds nothing.

Mostly, he sleeps on the mattress that’s on the floor of the single bedroom of the apartment, collecting hours of unconsciousness in the hope that they’ll amount to something in the future. Like if he banks enough sleep he won’t have to deal with that part of his life anymore, he’ll just be awake always, never tired again.

It’s a little hard to forget how he met Ramsay, steel against his skin, but Theon’s willing to try because Ramsay returns from wherever he goes with little white pills and bags of fast food and all he really asks for is that Theon suck his dick in return. It’s not much to ask.

Theon spends his nights wide awake, grinning and talking until he’s told to shut up and sometimes even then. He puts his hands all over Ramsay even though Ramsay isn’t his type, not pretty enough, not kind enough, not warm enough. Theon finds he doesn’t care with colors dancing behind his eyelids, and darkness reveals itself to be a relative thing. Theon sees light refracting through windows and he bathes in it until morning comes.

He’s been staying with Ramsay for two weeks when Ramsay makes a proposition. Theon is sitting on the counter of the cramped kitchen, the heels of his feet hitting back against the cupboards in some kind of rhythm. And he knows, yeah, that Ramsay’s asking because his pupils are blown and he’s on the uptick, a million years from coming down from where he stands right now.

“I think we need you to start making some money,” Ramsay says, and Theon always wonders how old he is. It’s hard to tell with that face, older or younger, younger or older. He would stump carnival workers, Theon thinks, with their rows of neon prizes.

“Okay,” he says in the moment, because he’s been waiting for this. He’d be pretty good at selling pills, pretty good at however that works. He’s a fast learner.

“There’s a party tonight, it starts in a few hours.” Ramsay’s hand on Theon’s thigh, Theon’s eyes faraway, the room a cascade of blues and greens. “I’ll take you there and you’ll get to work.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Theon says, thinking, God, he’s so glad he left home. This is right where he’s meant to be.

He gets dressed right before they leave, changing out one shirt for another, his one pair of basketball shorts for his one pair of jeans. The only clothes he has because it's all that would fit in his backpack. It’s cold outside, in the way that nights are cold here—just barely—and it only takes them a little over ten minutes to get to the place the party is being held.

Some kind of club with a back entrance, dimly lit neon lights and pulsing bass. Theon keeps waiting for Ramsay to hand him baggies of white pills that he can tuck in his back pockets, but it doesn’t happen. Ramsay just leads him through the crowds inside, a hand on the small of Theon’s back, until they reach a row of private rooms in the back.

“Wait in here,” Ramsay tells him and Theon can’t tell if it’s his imagination or not, but it seems like he’s smiling wickedly, making Theon think of the hanging, only-thing-left smile of the Cheshire Cat.

Theon does what he’s told, even so, his eyes traveling around the room and taking stock. It’s small, but warmly lit, and the door has a lock. There’s a red couch that stretches all the way across the back wall, and a low table with an ash tray and a bowl of shiny, foil-wrapped condoms. Theon picks one up just as he hears the door open behind him.

He turns and it isn’t Ramsay. It’s some older man, large around the middle, red-faced and looking at Theon like he’s never seen anything so good.

Theon’s heart drops straight to the floor.

Later on, back home, and Theon doesn’t sleep. He stays curled up on the mattress in Ramsay’s bedroom and listens while Ramsay explains how things are going to be from now on.

He’s going to take half of what Theon makes and Theon is going to work every night that he's told to, because Theon is going to do the work that’s asked of him or Ramsay will take everything, all of it, and Theon will get nothing.

“How does that sound?” Ramsay asks and Theon wishes he had the energy to sit up and spit at him, cut his own lip and spit blood. He wants to mark Ramsay something awful.

But he’s also got almost eight hundred dollars that he didn’t have before, and a need for small, white pills he didn’t have before, and the stark knowledge that Ramsay isn’t above violence (and he _s_ _hould_ have had that before). So he just bites his bottom lip and nods, okay, okay.

 

* * *

 

Rolling drunk through red lights and throwing up in alleyways, that’s how Theon’s life evolves into the broken splintered thing he begins to regard as normal.

The weird thing is that it doesn’t bother him as much as he’d initially feared it might. Maybe it’s a shitty talent to have, but he’s _good_ at this. He learns how to posture himself and what to wear, how to breathe and blink and angle his face just right in low lighting. He takes his time and doesn’t flinch when bruises are pressed into his skin, doesn’t wince when he’s fucked into, makes it his mission to give the best head he can, because that’s quick, good-paying work. And he becomes able to ignore the aches and pains of this life, things he thought would hurt him forever fading into the background like white noise.

Yeah, he’s good at this. Might be the only thing he’s ever actually been good at.

He drops half of what he makes onto Ramsay’s kitchen table at four one morning and says, “I’m moving out.”

Ramsay sits back and says, “Is that so?”

He doesn’t stop Theon, just wants to know his address and wants a second key to his place and Theon doesn’t even care enough to say no. He can handle Ramsay and his games, or at least he pretends he can. He pushes the thought to the back of his mind, the nagging feeling that he’s a dog on Ramsay’s leash, being allowed to wander before he’ll be pulled back in the end.

And he still spends half his nights at Ramsay’s place, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he has a place of his own to go back to if he wants to bad enough. He has his own mattress on his own floor, his own brown tap water, his own jammed-shut windows, and his own mildew-stained bathroom tile.

It’s all about ownership, all about control, and Theon’s greatest mistake is believing he has either of those things, but that realization doesn’t come until later.

Right now he’s got stars behind his eyes and a grin on his face, Ramsay’s arm around his shoulders. He is Ramsay’s boy through and through, and everyone knows it. They ask for him that way and Theon doesn’t mind, though he kinda wants his name known. He kinda wants it to travel back to his hometown and for his father to hear that his son is out there getting paid to be fucked by men twice his age.

Kinda wants his whole high school class to know, whatever, but not really. It occurs to him during sober moments that this isn’t anything he’s ever going to want to tell anyone, and that he’s given up on the things he used to want.

He used to have dreams about this nameless, faceless boy who would kiss him sweetly and take him places. Or maybe Theon would take him. Oh, the places they’d go. They’d hold hands and lay on the beach at midnight, eat ice cream and wake up together, the smell of blown out candles after a birthday party in the air. Years together, morning commutes, jobs and mortgages and all other manner of adult-type things that Theon knew he’d only ever be able to weather with another person by his side.

Well, that’s all gone now, he knows. You don’t get all that after you’ve done what he has.

Instead, he gets Ramsay who he thinks, at least half the time, hates him more than anything. Ramsay, Theon thinks, would like to see Theon’s teeth and blood on the bathroom floor. He’s said it more than once: “Stop smiling.”

Theon hasn’t stopped, but he’s getting closer every day. The only time he really smiles any more is when he’s high and blissed out, the world a faraway thing.

He turns seventeen and it surprises him, coming a couple of weeks after the New Year. Oh yeah, he thinks, oh yeah. He doesn’t tell anyone, because what’s the point? No one’s gonna give him anything, no one’s gonna be happy for him. Back home at least he had—but no. He stops himself whenever his mind tries to go that far back. Not worth it.

Not worth it at all.

 

* * *

 

Theon’s never been in love before he’s pretty sure, at least not the way it’s supposed to be and maybe that’s the worst part of it.

Nothing in his life is like it’s supposed to be.

A year of his life should mean something, but he finds that it doesn’t. Days warp like melted plastic into each other, time passing like one massive thing that he can barely comprehend. There isn’t even a routine to mark things by, no regularity. Sometimes he’s awake and sometimes he’s asleep, but mostly he’s not.

He sits strung out on street corners until someone pulls up and rolls down their window and he takes cash in envelopes and gets kicked out of motel rooms. People know him but also no one really does. They call him all sorts of names, but none of the names belong to him.

Regulars come and go, businessmen in suits and married men without their wedding rings on, because that way it doesn’t count.

Theon smiles at them all, but it’s starting to feel put on, this thing he has to remember to do. It used to come so naturally.

And he’s still good at it, skinny-shouldered and licking his lips. Still good. But just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean it’s good for you, or something to that effect.

The real depression starts to sink in around the time he realizes that, if he were still at home, he’d be starting his senior year of high school. There’s no love lost for his graduating class, no family bonding to miss, but it feels like a right of passage that he’ll never be able to claim. Sitting in classrooms and not paying attention, wheedling away the days and walking through hallways buoyed by an inflated sense of self-importance, yeah.

He’ll get none of that.

All he’s got is money hidden in his apartment that all goes to rent anyway and bruises on his arms that he doesn’t bother to hide. All he knows is just barely making it and the feeling of sleeping alone even when there’s someone next to him.

The person he sees the most, the person who knows the most about him these days is a guy who’s last name he doesn’t even know, is a guy who doesn’t even like him much, if at all.

Theon is half-convinced that Ramsay, actually, is obsessed with him in the worst kinda way. Magnifying glass and ants kinda way. Ramsay’s getting steadily more possessive, the way Theon was warned he might by some of Ramsay’s other boys. All of them without names, disappearing like they never even existed or maybe Theon knew where they went but he forgot because there were too many of them to remember.

Ramsay shows up at odd hours, breaks things in Theon’s apartment when he’s not there. Theon will come home and find glass on the floor and not think much of it, just let it be crushed under the soles of his shoes. This is just how things are, but it bothers him more than he wants to admit.

He already has trouble sleeping, but the past few months have put him on razor’s edge, stopping himself from nodding off because he hears sounds in the night and they aren’t always nothing.

Five in the morning and Ramsay will show up, angry about anything, _where’s the money_ and _I told you a million times_. He’s taking more than half these days, but Theon’s not sure what to do. Go to the police and tell them, hey, the guy who got me into being a whore, he’s not honoring our original agreement. Yeah, sure, that’ll go over real well.

So Theon gives Ramsay whatever he asks for, and increasingly that means they’re fucking around. Some nights it means Theon doesn’t do anything else and it’s okay, he tells himself, because that tends to make Ramsay more lenient when it comes to the money side of things. Theon is rewarded with being allowed to keep more of what he earns and that’s fucked up, it’s fucked up, it’s _fucked up_ —but what’s he going to do about it?

This is a guy he met with a knife in his hand, and he’s heard stories about the things Ramsay does to people who don’t do what he says, so he stays where he is and does the best that he can, and he waits.

He waits.

 

* * *

 

Only green space in the world, last park left in the city, Theon is stumbling through morning light. He has money tucked in the front pocket of his black sweatshirt and his mind is clear, for once. A sober morning, steady hands, and Theon likes this place.

He has to go out of his way to come through here, most days. The hotel he was in until twenty minutes ago is more than out of his way, and coming here was like a big hook-shaped detour through the city, but, God, Theon loves the trees. He loves the manicured lawns and playground sets, rusty though they might be. He loves the equidistant wooden benches and the people briskly walking their dogs.

It’s worth it, probably, for these few minutes of something like peace.

And Theon doesn’t mean it, really doesn’t—he feels like, in hindsight, it must seem purposeful somehow, but it surprises him just like he thinks it would anyone else.

A person curled up in the bushes, black hair matted with leaves and a body so still Theon’s heart nearly stops. He tenses and considers running. The last thing he needs is to add this to his police record—already lousy with small time offenses, nothing they can make stick, but this would haunt him forever, some dead boy.

He’s not sure what it is that makes him stay, crouching down and reaching out, pressing two fingers to the boy’s shoulder and then jolting away as if shocked even though nothing happens.

Theon moves closer, stupidly, unwilling to leave for a reason he can’t quite pinpoint. He reaches out again and, this time, curls his fingers around the boy’s shoulder like some prelude to holding him, saying _I’m here, are you?_ And this time it’s the boy that jolts, wrenching away from Theon’s grip into a sitting position, swaying and scrambling away and staring forward, bewildered.

And Theon can’t really blame him because—Jesus, God, and everything in-between.

“Jon?” he says, hoarse and scared and sure this isn’t real until, almost imperceptibly, the boy with black hair nods.

 _Yeah, I’m here_.

Theon doesn’t take Jon back to his apartment because that would be a stupid move on too many levels to even count. Instead, they don’t even leave the park, heading for the rusty playground set like a pair of kids (which is all they really are), Theon’s hand on Jon’s wrist and Jon tripping over himself to follow.

It’s an old trick, sitting in the carnival top hideaway that is the top of the tallest slide. Used to be that it could fit both of them in there, hidden from the world, but now it can really only fit Jon, who’s skinnier than Theon ever remembers him being, and so pale white he glows in the darkness. Theon sits halfway outside, legs sprawled towards monkey bars, picking at chipping paint with his finger nails.

“So,” he finally says, “what the fuck?”

Jon laughs at that, hiccuping and nervous, looking down at his ratty, bright green Converse. The ones that are marked up with drawings and signatures. Theon’s own initials are somewhere on them, he just can’t remember where.

“No one’s more surprised than I am,” Jon says, and he’s almost convincing, but then he shakes his head. “No, I can’t—I can’t say that and mean it. There’s been rumors. About you.”

“Sure,” Theon nods, because he figured there would be, that's just high school for you. He has one hand curled in the pocket of his sweatshirt, thumb against the edges of the folded bills in there. “Most of them started by my own father, probably.”

Jon scrunches up his face and shrugs. He was never that interested in Theon’s family drama. “I dunno. Maybe. All I know is there were some people saying you were a-a—well.”

“A whore,” Theon offers and Jon’s face colors at that.

“Yeah, well. It wasn’t a lot of people, it was just something someone had heard, it seemed like, and it blew over in a week or two because something happened at lunch, some fight or whatever. But I couldn’t—well, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Aw. Some things never change.” Theon speaks quietly, half-kidding, and now he’s the one staring at Jon’s shoes. The conversation is easier this way and he doesn’t see why he should make it any harder than it already is, really. “And…what? You came out here to join me?”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Jon says, so forcefully that his voice echoes inside the tin can top of the slide, surprising them both. Jon looks shaken, arms around himself and he really is so much smaller than he used to be, which is backwards. Not right. People are supposed to _grow_. “I had to get away, you know that. I had to get away and when I heard that you had, that you were living this life—“

“Jesus,” Theon turns away, staring blindly towards the other end of the park, the sun-catching buildings that rise and climb in the distance. “Don’t say that like I’m doing something worth aspiring to.”

It’s quiet, low hum of buses running through the streets and the city starting to wake up, and then Jon says, “You left me behind, Theon.”

“Oh—how long have you been waiting to use that one?”

“Two years,” Jon says, too bluntly honest for his own good, and Theon rolls his eyes. "That’s how long. You can’t just—do what you did to me and then leave.”

“I didn’t—I did _not_ ,” Theon levels Jon with as steady a gaze as he can, “do anything to you. We were kids. You’re still a kid, Jon. And you…you have to go home.”

Jon’s face is stony as ever, but Theon can see the flickers behind the carefully crafted emptiness and he knows his words were pointedly harsh. Because if there’s one thing Theon knows about Jon, above all else, it’s that Jon’s never had a home, not a real one, and even if there’s an address that he lives at, there’s no love behind that door, no real reason for him to return.

“I don’t _have_ to do anything,” Jon says and Theon is suddenly, uncomfortably, reminded of what it felt like to first be taken by Jon’s stalwart stubbornness. The reason he liked and disliked this boy in equal measure from the very first time they met.

“Okay,” he agrees as the sun rises through treetops above them, warmth creeping up the rusted steel of the playground and setting the world on fire once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time, it's back to the future.
> 
> thanks for the comments/kudos/bookmarks, they're made of wonderful stuff, every last one of them. hectic times mean i'm not the best at replying to comments, especially, but just know i see every last one and appreciate the feedback endlessly!


	3. watching stars collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jumping forward to your favorite episode in the middle of a rewatching your favorite television show.

It becomes routine.

Skirting around the side of Robb’s house and pushing Robb’s shirt up to expose skin, going back to the diner where they first ate together. Going to one movie at eight and sneaking into another one at ten, back rows and sticky floors under the soles of their shoes. Twisting stomach sickness type adoration for the way Robb smiles at him when he’s making a stupid joke, oh God.

He likes this boy so much, in the way he never thought he’d be allowed to like someone ever again.

Theon says, “Hey, hey,” in an alleyway before pressing Robb up against the brick wall and kissing him on the mouth, hard and fast and keeping him grounded. Kisses Robb in Robb’s backyard, this big sprawling expanse that isn’t fenced in, a fire pit on the outskirts. And he kisses Robb while he fucks him in that tucked away basement room for the first time, Robb gasping his name and holding onto him, everything in that moment.

He doesn’t take Robb back to his apartment, would never do that to someone he actually cares about if he can avoid it.

Robb doesn’t seem to mind, drunk on summer and high on all these firsts, the things Theon is introducing him to. He asks once or twice about going back to Theon’s place, because “no parents, man,” but Theon tells half the truth, that his place is a mess with thin walls and crawling bugs.

“I’ll get a better place someday,” he says, “and then.”

 _And then_ is his unfulfilled prophecy, all the things he’s gonna do because he is staggeringly obsessed and taken in by this boy with his dark red hair and kind eyes and ability to rattle off all the names and positions of the players on the Giants. It’s these little things, little pieces of Robb’s life, that make Theon’s heart ache in a desperate way.

There’s one night where Robb is somehow, miraculously home alone, the younger kids with his parents at some family gathering and his oldest, but still younger, sister with her friends. Robb says he’s sick and lets Theon in through the back, basement door, leads him up the stairs and into the kitchen.

It’s this perfect house, all clean and sparkling but not without signs that people live there. A wet towel by the sink, a box of cereal left out on the counter, the television turned on to a baseball game and the scritch-scratch of dog nails across hardwood floors.

Theon’s still not a fan of dogs, but he can handle Grey, who jumps up and licks his face and wags his tail. Robb says that Theon is Grey’s favorite all the time, and that Grey isn’t alone in that.

This boy, Theon thinks, sitting on the couch and biting his lower lip, trying to follow the machinations of a sport he’s never understood while Robb makes them a frozen pizza in the kitchen. This boy is gonna be the death of him.

They eat the pizza slightly burnt, unable to stop touching each other on the couch, with Robb pointing out double plays and this one killer breaking pitch the pitcher has. “Just look at it,” he says in awe, and Theon’s watching Robb’s profile and nodding along, yeah, I see.

There’s a commercial break and Theon can’t help himself. They end up kissing, tasting like soda and tomato sauce, like teenaged boys do, and Robb’s game is forgotten as he pulls Theon up the stairs and to his bedroom. It’s the first one on the right, furthest away from his parents room and the way Robb says that, like it’s the most important thing, makes Theon feel an awful lurch in his chest.

He ignores it, his hands on Robb’s face, immersing himself in the feel of their bodies together. Quick cursory glance around Robb’s room and he smiles at the boyishness of it. Clipped newspaper articles on the walls and trophies on the top of a tall, wooden dresser. A shiny, desktop computer tucked in the corner and superhero figures strewn about, clothes on the floor.

“Couldn’t clean up for me?” he asks, and Robb grins wolfishly at him, burningly handsome, one of those moments where Theon can glimpse the man he’s going to become when he’s twenty-five, thirty years old.

They fall back on Robb’s bed, which has worn and faded Mighty Ducks sheets stretched across it, all green, purple, black, gold, and white. Robb knocks a pillow off the bed when he scrambles for purchase as Theon sucks at the skin of his stomach, open-mouthed kisses on his hipbone and then helping him to shed his sweatpants and boxer briefs. He sucks Robb off to the tune of _oh God oh God oh God_ , and the feeling of Robb’s hand in his hair until he's begging for it.

“Please, fuck, please Theon,” he says, but Theon is controlled by no one and he won’t do what Robb says just because he’s hopelessly enamored, no, that’s not how he does things.

Instead, he bends Robb in half underneath him, fucks into him while he’s still wearing his too-small t-shirt that proudly proclaims him a graduate of Northwood Middle School. He kisses Robb as he comes, this new kinda sensation, and tells him, “So good, keep doing what you do, babe, you’re so good.”

Robb responds to shit like that so _intensely,_ Theon cannot believe it. He keens and whines and his shirt ends up stained and thrown to the ground, crumpled and maybe ruined forever, but neither of them care. They lay side by side, breathing hard and staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets stuck to the ceiling.

Theon rolls over onto his side, propped up on his elbow and Robb grins up at him, pretty boy smile that makes Theon think, _I can’t believe you’re mine_ , without hesitation. They kiss a few more times, lazily, in-between Robb going back to a conversation they were having earlier, trying to explain to Theon that baseball isn’t boring you'll see we'll go to game together some day, and he nods off like that, mid-sentence.

He has to move carefully, but Theon manages to get off the bed without disrupting Robb’s drift into sleep. He grabs a pair of possibly, probably dirty board shorts from the floor and puts them on, and then gives himself a tour of the room.

The newspaper clippings are mostly sports-related, big moments in baseball history, but some of them are about more benign things, animal shelters and charity drives, making Theon’s heart ache like a loose tooth that’s only hanging on by a thread. The superhero action figures aren’t all old, a lot of them are shiny, new plastic, and a few are still even in the box. Theon counts about seven Captain Americas in various sizes and incarnations, a clear favorite.

Tall, gold trophies, most of them for first place in this or that league, most of them for baseball and Theon realizes he didn’t even know Robb played and that he wants to ask about that, wants to know all the details. A few of the trophies are for other things, some kind of leadership award and a few academic-related achievements. Golden boy, clearly, and Theon’s always known that Robb was someone that was smiled upon, but it wasn’t until now that he was able to see it so obviously, the proof set out before him.

He kinda wants to drop to his knees and ask for forgiveness, say he’s sorry for this, the one bad choice Robb has ever made has to be him, has to be this.

It’s hard to breathe and the red numbers of the alarm clock next to Robb’s bed read just after eleven, a night that’s barely even begun.

Theon finds a stack of printer paper on Robb’s desk and a chewed on black pen. _wish i could stay and wake up with you. someday i will...until then._

He leaves the note half-under the alarm clock, and slips out into the night like he was never there.

 

* * *

 

Morning after and he starts dreaming big.

He’s maybe a little bit drunk from jack and cokes that just kept coming from unnamed sources. Unnamed sources who would eventually slip him green bills in the bathroom while he was on his knees, so maybe that’s why. But honestly, he thinks it’s the thought of Robb that will not leave the back of his mind these days and the fact that his boy is going places, and maybe he ought to work on being able to go with him.

There’s a convenience store not too far from his apartment, and the tonal _ding dong_ sounds as he steps inside, a printed Help Wanted sign on the sliding doors.

The place is brightly lit and well-maintained, relatively empty because it’s so early on a weekday, but there’s a guy at the cash register, name tag on his polo shirt and glasses on his face.

“Hello,” the guy says, cheery but bored at the same time, looking like he must have just got in to relieve whoever worked the night shift.

“Hi, um.” Theon is stuck, staring at this guy and trying to figure out if he needs to buy something before he asks about the sign. Maybe some gum? But he can’t remember the last time he had gum aside from Juicy Fruit when he was eight years old and his sister told him he was going to die if he swallowed it. Back when he believed things like that.

“Do you need help finding something?” The guy is unobtrusively polite, while also managing to look impatient and Theon is stupidly intimidated. He knows working a cash register isn’t rocket science but it also kinda feels like it might as well be, and that this guy might as well be a rocket scientist.

“I—the sign? You’re…you guys are hiring?” Theon manages to cobble together the question he wants to ask, though it comes to him painfully, like taking a bandaid off too slow.

“Oh.” Rocket scientist guy’s name tag says he’s the assistant manager and he’s maybe only a little bit older than Theon is, which is at least better than him being younger. Theon can feel this guy sizing him up, blinking at him a few times and then smiling awkwardly. “No, sorry. Forgot to take the sign down.”

Theon forces a laugh. “Right, that’s—totally understandable, man. Thanks anyway.”

He hears the guy telling him to have a nice day as he stumbles outside, face red and spirit leaking out of him like yolk out of a broken egg, accidentally cracked.

It’s not the dumbest thing he’s ever done, but it comes close. Asking for a job after screwing for money not an hour ago, only slightly removed from being high and drunk and it’s probably written all over his face. He’s the type of person who steals from stores like that, not the type of person who works at them.

What the fuck was he thinking.

He wants, badly, to go to Robb’s house and throw rocks at his window, make Robb come down and let him in. But he just goes back to his own place, dully upset when he finds that no one’s there either, not even Jon looking to snag something from the fridge. The place is just awfully empty and he drops onto the mattress in his bedroom alone, wills himself to fall asleep, and maybe never wake up again.

 

* * *

 

He does wake up because that’s just his luck, but it happens unexpectedly.

Hand on his back, fingertips on his spine, voice in his ear, “Hey, Theon, hey,” and for a second Theon is thinking _how did he find me here_ , rolling over and expecting soft warmth, getting Jon’s blissed out confusion instead.

“Fuck!” He startles, pulling away from Jon’s cold hands. It’s not fear, just surprise. Theon was half-sure he was dreaming, but now he knows he’s awake. Jon looking battered and battened down, here for the same reason he always is: because he has nowhere else to go.

“‘m not supposed to fall asleep,” Jon mumbles, eyes sunk into his head and voice scratchy. “Got hit on the head.”

“Jesus.” Theon sits up and squints in the darkness of the room and, yeah. Jon’s got a purpling bruise spilling out from under his hair, onto his forehead. “What happened, babe?”

“Some guy got mad, would—wouldn’t pay me.” Jon’s slurring his words, swaying and making Theon nervous for him. “Thought he left bu’then he came back and he had—friends, and. He.” Jon puts a hand to his head and Theon is terrified he’s going to start crying, but he doesn’t. “He, yeah, hit me hard a coupla times and I ran.”

“You think you have a concussion or—what?” Theon scoots closer, letting his thin sheets fall away as he reaches up to push Jon’s hair back and winces at the part of the bruise he can see.

“Maybe, I dunno. Don’t know how it works, but I’m scared to sleep, Theon, I’m. Scared.” Jon’s mumbling and leaning forward into Theon’s touch and Theon’s never gotten used to this, being Jon’s older brother. “Please.”

“Yeah, hey, I got that DVD player still. How about we watch something stupid and eat frozen waffles?”

Jon smiles at that and Theon smiles back, he’s got this, he has to.

He makes the Eggos in his almost-busted toaster and hooks up the DVD player to the used television he got a year ago. No cable, but he picks up bargain bin movies here and there, a little growing collection of movies no one is really that fond of. He pops in some action flick he’s never gotten around to watching, strapping guys with machine guns on the cover, and sets Jon on the couch.

They eat and laugh at the parts of the movie that are supposed to be serious, and Theon thinks that’s a good sign, that Jon is laughing easily. Jon ends up curled by his side during the credits, asking Theon to talk so he doesn’t fall asleep, and Theon does.

He talks about anything and everything, their shared history together. _Remember that time_ and _I never saw someone so stupid_. Jon smirks against his arm, hand on his wrist, and Theon can’t believe he doesn’t see it coming when Jon starts to kiss his neck right in the middle of him recounting the first time they got drunk together, in a tree house of all places.

“Dude,” Theon says, reverting back to being fifteen years old, awkwardly shrugging Jon away. “No—I can’t.”

“Why?” Jon asks, sounding genuinely confused. They don’t fuck around on a regular basis and when they do, Theon’s sure, it means nothing. It hasn’t meant anything for years. But Theon’s never turned Jon down before, never been in a position where he felt like he should.

“I don’t know, maybe because you might have, like, a brain injury?” Theon says, but it’s more than that and he avoids Jon’s eyes, because Jon’s the only person he really believes can read him anymore. “And I—I kinda. I’ve got…someone.”

“Someone,” Jon says, flatly. “What does ‘someone’ mean?”

“Like a…a, I don’t know.”

“A boyfriend?” Jon asks, this big joke, all suggestive. When Theon just keeps still and silent, Jon’s facial expression shifts into abject disbelief. “Wait are you—you’re not fucking around with me?”

“Not really, no,” Theon replies, voice hard and picking at his cuticles. Something he’s been trying to stop himself from doing lately, but right now there’s nothing else to do and he’s going crazy in this stillness. Afraid he’s going to throw Jon out the window.

“But you’re still—just last night, I know you were out working.“

“Yeah, well, he’s our age. He doesn’t even have a job. He’s not paying my bills, so.” Theon shrugs, stiff shouldered and uncomfortable with this conversation. “I still have to work.”

Jon falls bodily back against the couch and lets out a huge sigh of strangled emotion. They sit in near silence, the only sound is the low volume loop of the DVD menu, the same lines yelled over and over again with military-style background music leading the way. Finally, Theon can’t stand it and he gets up and turns the television off.

“Is it gonna be like this now? All weird?” he asks, unable to sit down or stay still.

“It’s always been weird between us,” Jon mumbles, but they both know this is different. Ever since Theon met Jon, and maybe he’s looking at things with rose-tinted glasses but whatever, ever since they met it’s been electric between them. Never a safe moment, always someone getting burned, both of them coming back again and again because neither of them hates the shock as much as they pretend they do.

But this isn’t that. Theon isn’t sure _what_ this is, just that it isn’t what it’s always been.

“Do you like him?” Jon says, finally, staring down at his hands, unable to look up, and Theon’s got his eyes focused on the bruise on his forehead.

“I—I do. A lot. He’s like, all the goodness I ever wanted. I found it, with him.” Theon’s being maybe a little sappy, but he feels like he’s fucking earned the right. Fights through hell and back on a daily basis, and he thinks he deserves to have a big line like this, like they do in the movies. Or at least he tries to tell himself he does.

He watches Jon suck in a deep breath like he just took a punch and he wishes he felt worse about it, but it’s hard to. It didn’t go down exactly this way last time, but their situations were more or less reversed and so, how can he? Jon’s done all the worst parts of this to him before. Theon has nothing to feel bad about.

“Can I still stay here? I think I’m gonna, maybe, try to sleep.” Jon looks deflated, a sad, popped balloon on the floor. He’s always been good at gloominess, been at his best-looking when he’s brooding.

“Of course, man. Like—you’re still my friend. My best friend, probably.”

Jon laughs at that like it hurts, shakes his head. “Yeah. Okay. Wake me up when it’s time to leave.”

Theon watches him go and it’s weird. Jon is going to sleep in his bed, but he seems further away than ever. Theon feels like he’s adrift in the open ocean and there’s water all around him, but nothing to hold onto. All he can think is, it's getting late and he's not sure how much longer he's going to be able to keep his head above the waves.

 

* * *

 

Some mornings, Theon doesn’t go to sleep after working. Instead, he meets up with Robb by the beach and they walk Grey together, until the big dog inevitably gets away and goes running with his leash trailing behind him as he chases gulls down the waterfront. Robb will buy the two of them ice cream, and they’re in agreement that getting a twist is better than choosing in-between chocolate and vanilla.

Robb gets sprinkles on his and Theon teases him for it, but he actually really kinda likes the way they stick to Robb’s lips and make him taste like sugar for an hour afterwards.

They end up going through the back door at Robb’s place, sticky with salt water and covered in sand and that’s how Theon accidentally meets Robb’s little brothers, because they’re in the den playing Mario Kart, with one of them whooping and yelling and the other one whining that it isn’t fair, he hasn’t won a single game.

“Oh, um,” Theon says, hiding himself behind Robb. “I can, like, go if you want?”

“No, it’s cool—Bran, Rickon, this is Theon.”

Robb’s brothers seem to know who he is at least vaguely and Theon guesses that maybe he and Robb weren’t as adept at sneaking in and out of the house as he thought they were. He’s pretty sure Robb didn’t explain him as ‘the guy I’m fucking’, but that’s more than fair, and he’s okay with people thinking they’re just friends, especially if those people just started middle school this year.

Theon ends up joining Rickon’s team, using his controller to win three straight races as Donkey Kong, and after a couple of hours he’s Rickon’s clear favorite because every other word out of the kid’s mouth is his name and he keeps hanging off of Theon’s arm.

The kids end up trekking up the stairs a little after that and Robb goes with them—something about grilled cheese and Capri Suns—and Theon grins as he listens to Bran and Rickon argue about who really won the most races, with Bran’s voice trailing off as he says, “But _you_ didn’t even win any!”

Robb comes back fifteen minutes later, two plates and juice boxes in hand, and says, “I, um. Make a pretty good grilled cheese.”

He’s right, and Theon doesn’t even care that he feels like he’s ten again, blowing air into his empty Capri Sun pouch and then folding it up into a cell phone.

“Me too!” Robb says, excitedly, when he does that and Theon is warmed over with affection. He knows most anyone could have the same reaction, but he’s sure that only Robb’s would be so genuinely happy, so openly thrilled about such a little thing.

They end up making out on the couch with the door closed, neither of them wanting to do much more than that. Both of them are tired from the early morning and Theon hasn’t slept in over twenty-four hours so it only follows that he ends up falling asleep, crushed between Robb and the back of the couch.

He wakes up with dry spit on the side of his mouth and a blanket over him, faint video game music playing and the room dark except for the glow of the television.

“Wha’s that?” he asks, groggy and unsure of the time.

“Oh.” Robb’s sitting in front of the couch, cross legged, and he shifts so that Theon can see the screen better. “Batman.”

“Cool,” Theon says, watching as Bruce Wayne appears to ride a zipline through the rainy cityscape. “What time ‘sit?”

“Almost midnight.” Soft _click clack_ of buttons being pressed in quick succession and Theon is completely still. He should go, he should really go, he has dimly lit clubs to slink through and money to make, and Robb's still talking, unaware of it all. “My mom made tacos and rice, if you want some. I’ll have to heat it up, but, like. She makes really good tacos.”

“Cooking runs in the family, huh,” Theon says, grinning when Robb tips his head back to glare at him. “No that sounds—yeah. Yeah, man.”

“Cool,” Robb echoes, pausing the game. He does this stupidly cute thing, turning around on his knees and kissing Theon on the mouth before he gets up and heads for the door. “I’ll be right back.”

Theon knows he should leave. It wouldn’t be too late to make it happen and Robb would be disappointed, sure, but not murderously angry. But, the thing is, he doesn’t want to move. He wants to stay here, comfortable, stay with the boy he likes and the boy who likes him and so.

And so he does.

It’s as easy as that, though it seems like it shouldn’t be.

It turns out Robb’s mom does make good tacos, and Theon eats three of them, copiously loaded with sour cream and tomatoes, making fun of Robb for having trouble fighting the Joker who is, for some reason, all big and hulking, but whatever. He’s in the moment, as much as he ever can be. And the moment is fucking _awesome_.

A couple of hours later and Robb is half-asleep on top of him, pressing the palms of their hands together and startling when he feels where Theon’s ring finger and pinky finger should be on his left hand, but aren’t.

“Sorry,” he says, not moving his hand away. “I forget, sometimes.”

“I forget all the time,” Theon says and he’s not even lying. He thought he would feel these ghosting weird pains, constantly trying to do things he couldn’t anymore. But he’s always been right handed and he’s never felt it hurt, not since it actually happened, not even before it rains.

“What um—how did—am I being an idiot even trying to ask this question?” Robb’s got his head on Theon’s chest, his eyes closed and that makes this easier, sorta.

“No, it’s.” Theon swallows and shifts, stretching one leg out and hooking it over the far arm of the couch. He thinks of what he remembers from that time in his life and is surprised to realize that it wasn’t that long ago, that he’s not as far removed from things as he’d like to believe. “It was. My ex.”

He thinks of Ramsay, unsure of whether or not that’s the right word for him. He and Ramsay never really broke up, but they were never really together either. Theon doesn’t know what they were or what they are, doesn’t know how to explain it to the boy he’s with now, but doesn’t want to lie either.

“He, uh, would get,” Theon laughs nervously, “angry. He would get angry a lot.”

“So he—wait, what?” Robb is pushing himself up and Theon wants to shake his head. _No, stay right there_. But he doesn’t. He lets Robb prop himself up, make this into a real conversation. “He got angry and— _what_?”

“There was a knife in the kitchen.” Theon, hands free, raises them up to press his fingers against his eyelids until he’s seeing white spots. “The kind you chop things with, and he was really mad. So.”

“Jesus! Theon!”

Theon drops his arms to the side and opens his eyes and Robb is looking at him with something like horror on his face, like he can’t believe what he just heard. Theon’s not sure how he forgot that the things that have happened to him aren’t normal, are so far from it he’s not even sure there’s a word to describe what he’s been through.

“I thought, like, oh my God.” Robb is sitting up now, Theon turning on his side so he can fit. It’s all too easy, too good, and Theon thinks _this is going to hurt so bad_. “I thought, like, that something happened when you were a kid or, or. I don’t know, some insane person attacked you.”

“Well.” Theon keeps his eyes on how Robb’s hands are grabbing at his own, bringing Theon’s hand to his mouth and pressing his lips against Theon’s knuckles, like he can fix things somehow. “The second one isn’t too far off the mark.”

“Jesus,” Robb murmurs again and this time Theon can feel him breathe the syllables out.

“I should be—I need to be, um. Honest.” Theon has curled himself around Robb as best he can, close as he can get. “I need to tell you about, about me.”

Robb looks confused in the low lighting, pretty and troubled. “What do you mean?”

“He—see, he did it because I didn’t pay him.”

“For—what do you mean… _drugs_?” Robb’s eyes are big and wide as he drops Theon’s hand from his own, and Theon wants to throw up, lean over the side of the couch and ruin the carpet with the contents of his stomach.

“No, I mean. Maybe that was part of it, I don’t know, but.” Theon is trying to right himself, getting into a sitting position, thinking this will be better somehow if he’s upright. “I, um. This guy who I’m talking about? I have to give him part of my earnings from what I do. My…job.”

“Okay, look, I realize I’m— _naive_ ,” Robb says, with some bite for once. Not quite angry, but a little like it’s something he’s been sure Theon’s thought about him for a while and he’s upset about it. “But I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought you worked overnights at that industrial park off Square Lake.”

“That isn’t, well, it isn’t true.” Theon admits and he can feel all of this on his shoulders, like he’s a dam that was built years ago, with cracks running through, about to burst. Robb is open-mouthed, looking at him like he doesn’t know what to think. “I work, I—I work on the streets, you know. Having sex with, with guys. And so, and so.”

“What?” Robb says, so blankly it makes Theon’s skin crawl. There’s nothing behind the word, it’s an empty and cold thing.

“I know it sounds, um, bad, but—“

“Yeah because,” Robb stops himself, a small hiccup of hysterical laughter escaping his mouth. “Because it is fucking bad. Theon what—what the _fuck_?”

“Look, but, I’m not gonna do it anymore pretty soon,” Theon says, talking as fast as he can, every thought that comes to mind. “I’m saving. I’m trying to save up. Really trying this time, because. Because you—“

“Uh, I.” And Theon feels something shut off in him as he watches Robb shake his head. “I…I don’t think I can do this. I think you have to leave.”

“Wh—no.” Theon can feel his eyes, wet already, and he wants to slam his head against a wall, _stop crying, stop crying, stop crying_. “No, Robb, you don’t understand. Before I met you I, fuck, I really didn’t care. About anything. And then you were there and I—I _did_. Don’t do this.”

Robb is quiet and there’s space between them now. Only a few inches, but Theon is sick with wanting to reach across them.

“The whole—the whole time, though? You’ve been…?” Robb has his eyes trained on some faraway point, something Theon can’t see.

And he can’t keep lying. “Y-Yeah, but you have to—“

“No, I, I don’t have to anything!” Robb stands up, suddenly tall and imposing, so much _more_ than Theon ever realized, somehow. “This whole thing—what am I supposed to think?”

“I swear, I’m sorry, I swear, Robb, I.” Theon wants to stand up, wants to match Robb inch for inch, but he knows he’ll fall down if he tries. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Robb just shakes his head, this look on his face that makes Theon want to die, like he thought Theon was better than this.

“You need to leave, now.”

“Robb—“

“ _Now_ ,” Robb repeats, voice so hard it makes Theon jump, stumbling over himself to get up, feeling like a child.

Robb doesn’t touch him, just watches him grab his shoes and jacket, walks him to the door.

Theon tries to say he’s sorry again, tries to open his mouth without crying, but he can’t. He doesn’t fight it, lets Robb open the door and walks out into the night without having to be forced.

He ends up on the sidewalk in front of the house, staring up at the dark windows and trying to figure out which one is Robb’s until he can’t take it anymore, until the sun starts to rise and he makes his way back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything's been hectic, but here it is. this is probably my favorite chapter of the story, is that mean? i don't know. i'm considering writing a oneshot after this is all over, about jon and theon before this fic. something wild like that.
> 
> kudos and comments are always appreciated. thanks so much guys, and i hope whoever you are, wherever you are, that you're doing well right now. see you next time.


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